Geldof on Fathers

So, having taped Geldof on Fathers last week so that I could watch the equally fascinating "Who do you think you are?" on BBC2 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/index.shtml - last week Bill Oddie's journey to discover about his mother's mental illness and tonight apparently David Baddiel)...

...I finally got round to watching Geldof on Fathers. And cried all the way through. Just a really profound and involving piece of TV that I'm not sure that I'll ever forget. Images and words that are now burned into my brain - those men (and grandparents too - I'd never thought of them in all of this) struggling to keep their dignity intact and control their outward expressions of anger and pain and loss in front of a room full of strangers (that's the TV crew, but I'm sure court is no different). Them crying (not just weeping, or choking back tears) but really crying whilst confessing that all they wanted was to have real relationships with their own children in meaningful ways. And having spent the weekend watching my own brother's relationship with his 20 month old son, I think I can begin to understand how impossible that removal of the relationship would be for both him and the wee one. It just can't be right the way we are doing things as it stands through the family courts. Messy problems often lead to messy solutions, yes. But not to this sort of hurt and separation and anger...

The only other thing that struck me was the fascinating and potentially contradictory opinion (having watched himself on marriage the preceeding week as well) that men are both simultaneously silent brooding hulks who don't like to talk about how they feel, and also emotionally in-touch fathers who want real and open relationships with their children and partners. Now these two are not necessarily mutually exclusive I know - but it does show how massively complex this whole gamut of family life and relationships has become when we want to manage both our personal needs and behaviours with those of the people that we are living with and the children we bring into the world. I guess it shows that to generalise either gender into simply distilled versions of themselves is not only too basic but also potentially hurtful in the longer term.

(Just found this too - http://www.the-flipside.co.uk/f4jliverpool/2004/10/no-marriage-of-minds-tv-review-times.php - an interesting though more radical version of what I guess I'm getting at here..)